First-time workers who move jobs see their pay rise far faster than those staying put, according to new data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), with people on lower pay more likely to change jobs.
Weekly earnings for those who joined the workforce in 2023 and stayed in the same job rose 13.2 per cent in 2024 at the median (or middle value) – from €450.75 to €510.11 – while those who changed jobs saw their pay rise 40 per cent.
The median starting pay among those who moved was lower, at €346.15, with their earnings jumping to €484.71 after moving jobs.
Just over one in five first-time workers moved jobs between 2023 and 2024, with a close to a further quarter no longer featuring in the workforce data.
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First-time IT workers had the highest weekly earnings of any new-entrant employees in the State last year, with median weekly earnings of €1,013.62. This was more than double the median weekly earnings of new entrants in general (€428.58) and significantly above the median weekly earnings of all employees (€730.89).
The State’s IT sector, which is dominated by big US multinationals such as Apple and Google, typically offers the highest wages.
After IT, the sectors with the highest median weekly earnings were professional, scientific and technical activities (€640.88) and industry (€580.73).
The lowest median weekly earnings among new entrant employments were recorded for the arts, entertainment, recreation and other services (€264.19) and accommodation and food services (€285.55) sectors.
Men joining the workforce for the first time earned significantly more than women – €489.08 versus €356.88 a week, a difference of 37 per cent. Men were paid more in 12 of the 13 economic sectors examined, the one exception being human health and social work.
The CSO data also showed that new entrant employments among Irish nationals aged 15-24 years recorded median weekly earnings of €209.03, compared with weekly earnings of €428.84 among their non-Irish counterparts. The agency, however, cautioned that hours worked can impact the average earnings recorded and the current data set did not cover hours worked.
New entrants accounted for 8 per cent of all jobs in 2024, down from 8.9 per cent in 2023. More than two in five (40.6 per cent) new entrants were aged 15-24 years.
Irish nationals accounted for the largest proportion of new entrants at 42.5 per cent followed Indian (9 per cent), Ukrainian (5.1 per cent) and Brazilian (4.5 per cent) nationals.
They were followed by Spain, Romania, the UK, Italy, Portugal and Poland – each of which accounted for between 2 per cent and 3.3 per cent
Of the new entrants of Irish nationality, almost two-thirds (64.5 per cent) were aged 15-24 years. The CSO noted that Irish nationals were the only nationality cohort where the proportion of new entrants aged 15-24 years was larger than that aged 25-64 years.
“This is likely to have an impact on the average earnings among new entrant employments recorded for Irish nationals compared with their non-Irish counterparts,” the agency said.
The sector with the highest proportion of new entrant employments in 2024 was accommodation and food services, “in which 19.4 per cent of all employments were represented by new entrants”, the CSO said.
